For the last five weeks, I have been taking a college writing course. Our final project was a research essay that we had been working on in some way or another the entirety of the class. I put the finishing touches on mine earlier today, and I thought I would share it with you.
Fundamentalist Homeschooling and
Abuse
“I love that I can just stay in bed
and do school in my room.” This was my
typical, somewhat comedic response to public school kids who asked me what my
favorite part of homeschooling was. For
parents, I had a more structured, logical response, but the other kids I just
wanted to make jealous, because clearly I had the better deal. As I have grown, though, I have learned that
my experience with homeschooling was not the same as everyone else’s. It is not the perfect methodology I was
taught it was. I have come to realize that
my family lived on the fringe of a very dangerous side of the homeschooling
movement. Homeschooling Fundamentalists
have placed their children and themselves in the very precarious position of
living on the borders of child abuse, if not inside its ugly limits.
Homeschooling is a very popular and
growing movement. According to Ray
(2011), “There were an estimated 1.73 to 2.35 million children (in grades K to
12) home educated during the spring of 2010 in the United States.” Because it is so vast, homeschooling is also
very diverse. Thanks to research by the
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2012), we know that in the
2011-2012 school year, 68% of the approximate 1.8 million homeschooled were
White, 15% were Hispanic, 8% Black, 4% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 5%
combined or other. In addition to
ethnicity, reasons for homeschooling are also diverse and include a desire to
provide religious or moral instruction, a concern for the environment or
academics of traditional schools, and special needs of the child (NCES, 2012).
These reasons for homeschooling may
seem very sound and caring, but there are other reasons that are less
admirable. There are parents who
homeschool to hide physical abuse or as a form of manipulative mental
abuse. Even those who start homeschooling
with all good intentions may find themselves down a dangerous and unwanted
path.
Before diving into the bulk of my
topic, allow me some definitions. These
are not technical definitions but what I mean when I use certain words.
·
Physical Abuse: Any physical harm done to
a child, including punishment or violence that results in lasting marks such as
bruises or cuts, hair-pulling, intentional or unintentional neglect, physical
torture, or confinement for more than a day.
·
Sexual Abuse: Any sexual misconduct toward
a minor, including sexual grooming, inappropriate touching, and rape.
·
Mental or Emotional Abuse: Any mental harm
done to a child, including insulting or demeaning to the end of making the
child feel worthless or incapable, manipulation tactics, instilling terror or
high amounts of fear, or psychological torture.
·
Exploitation: Using or manipulating a
child for personal gain or benefit, whether monetary or otherwise.
·
Abuse: Any of the above.
Though it is not the only time abuse
occurs within homeschooling families, extreme Fundamentalism seems to be a
major contributor. As defined by
Miriam-Webster dictionary (n.d.), Fundamentalism is “a movement in 20th century
Protestantism emphasizing the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to
Christian life and teaching.” While
Fundamentalism may have had a sound beginning, in the last several years, the
term has been associated with such beliefs as the strictest modesty and courting
practices, complete patriarchy, high school only education for daughters, extreme
pro-life (known also as quiverfull), corporal punishment, and homeschooling. It is to these types of families I am
referring when I say “Fundamentalist.”
How does extreme fundamentalism relate to
child abuse? It creates the perfect
environment for it. Examine patriarchy
for a moment. Libby Anne (2012) puts it
well when she says, “Christian Patriarchy is the belief that God has ordained a
specific family order, and that this family order must be followed. The husband
leads, the wife submits, and the children obey.” To anyone who has grown up Christian, this
probably sounds biblical. Children
obeying their parents is certainly taught in the New Testament. Just look at Ephesians 6:1 and Colossians 3:20. Adherents to the patriarchy movement,
however, strictly enforce the part about authority and immediate obedience and
often forget that those same passages go on to say that fathers are not to
provoke or embitter their children. I know
from personal experience what happens when a father is unrelenting in his
expectations for perfection and submission – provoked and embittered children. The authority of the man was never designed
by God to be absolute, but as history has proven, people will take power
wherever they can, and they will misuse it.
Not only is demanding strict and immediate
obedience from children unbiblical, it is unhealthy. Robin West explains:
Child-raising
that is relentlessly authoritarian risks instilling what developmental
psychologists call “ethical servility”: a failure to mature morally beyond the
recognition of duties of obedience. In the most devoutly fundamentalist
households, ethical servility might not be regarded as a bad outcome; it may be
the desired goal. (West, 2009)
When a parent demands obedience and it is
not given, in the Fundamentalist system, some form of corporal punishment is
used. This varies from household to
household, but usually the desired end is breaking or “conquering the child's
will.” (Pearl, 1994). In many cases,
this is attempted by ever-increasing punishment until the child repents. The book by Micheal and Debbi Pearl called To Train up a Child is a popular
fundamentalist child-rearing manual, and it has come under fire in recent years
for advocating some of these practices.
Following is an excerpt:
Don't
be bullied. Give him [the rebellious or unrepentant child] more of the same. On
the bare legs or bottom, switch him eight or ten licks; then, while waiting for
the pain to subside, speak calm words of rebuke. If the crying turns to a true,
wounded, submissive whimper, you have conquered; he has submitted his will. If
the crying is still defiant, protesting and other than a response to pain,
spank him again. If this is the first time he has come up against someone
tougher than he, it may take a while. He must be convinced that you have truly
altered your expectations. (Pearl, 1994)
One of the biggest problems with
this type of training (aside from being biblically wrong) is that it can
escalate so easily. A parent who only
intended to spank their child once may find him or herself beating them in an
attempt to bring them into submission. If
he or she believes that they and their instrument of discipline are the only
things standing between their child and hell, they will be all the more
committed.
In addition to an authoritarian
lifestyle implemented by the father, many fundamentalist households also adhere
to the belief that all forms of contraception and “natural family planning” are
unbiblical. They “preached [that it is]
the duty of women to submit, bear as many children as God would give them, and
train them up as dedicated culture warriors, arrows in a divine quiver
(Goldberg, 2013).” They essentially believe
it is their duty to out populate non-Christians, so as to win the culture
war. This philosophy ends, though, with
children raising each other and not being cared for by their parents like they
should be. Cynthia Jeub, a former
reality television child and third of sixteen kids speaks about this in her
blog:
I
used to read about big families and how the older kids raised the younger kids,
and I thought it was all nonsense. Of course I changed diapers, and of course I
spent half my time babysitting. That was just life in a big family. People on
the outside wouldn’t understand that we all felt like mom gave us individual
attention, the dynamic just looked a little different.
Now
I remember with more perspective. I know how ignored we were. I know I did more
work than my parents, both around the house and in the office working on the
family business. I’ll always have back pain because I learned to carry children
on my hips before I properly had hips. I’ll always have memories of getting up
in the middle of the night to take care of a sick or restless toddler. (Jeub,
2014)
The stories of children raised with
abusive methods ranging from physical to financial and emotional are
overwhelming. The problematic thing about homeschooling in these scenarios is
that it effectively hides abuse. If a child does not attend school, there may
not be anyone outside of the home that knows him or her well enough to see when
their situation has turned abusive.
There is no one to notice the bruises.
Twenty-five out of fifty states have simply notification requirements or
no regulation at all (Home School Legal Defense Association, 2014). In these states, a parent only needs to pull
their child from school, and no one will ever notice the pain the child is in.
The lifestyle of homeschooling
Fundamentalists is ripe with factors that have been linked to abuse. Alone, having a large family is not cause to
suspect abuse, neither is homeschooling, patriarchy, Fundamentalism, or basic
corporal punishment. Combined, however,
these elements place parents in a precarious position. It only takes one slip to begin down the road
to abuse, and once you are on that road, it becomes harder to see the truth of
what you are doing.
References
Anne,
L. (2012). What is Christian patriarchy? An introduction. Retrieved from:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/02/what-is-christian-patriarchy-an-introduction.html
Fundamentalism
[Def. 1a]. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Online. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved
November 23, 2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fundamentalism.
Goldberg,
M. (2013). Homeschooled kids, now grown, blog against the past. Retrieved
November
23, 2014, from http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/11/homeschooled-kids-now-grown-blog-against-the-past.html
Home
School Legal Defense Association. (2014). State laws. Retrieved from
https://www.hslda.org/laws/
Jeub,
C. (2014). ‘I’m sorry you lost your kids.’ Retrieved from:
http://cynthiajeub.com/2014/10/im-sorry-you-lost-your-kids/
National
Center for Education Statistics. (2012). Parent and Family Involvement in
Education,
from the National Household
Education Surveys Program of 2012.
Retrieved from:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013028.pdf
Pearl,
M. & Pearl, D. (1994). To train up a child.
Retrieved from:
web.archive.org/web/20101104141241/http://www.achristianhome.com/to_train_up_a_child.htm
Ray,
B. (2011). Research facts on homeschooling. Retrieved from:
http://www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on-homeschooling.html
West,
R.L. (2009). The harms of homeschooling. Philosophy
& Public Policy Quarterly, 29(3-4) 7-12.
